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DONHODGES.COM
Personal blog · donhodges.comgamesprogramming
DONHODGES.COM is a personal blog at donhodges.com about games and programming. Since 2008, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times, most often “The Journey to Find, Analyze, and Fix Pac Man’s Split Screen (2007)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this site for detailed technical analyses of arcade games, especially Pac-Man's kill screen, its internals and patches, plus arcade hardware history and archived articles.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The Journey to Find, Analyze, and Fix Pac Man’s Split Screen (2007)8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2008-08-28
- A modulo arithmetic error in PacMan's ghost AI?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-12-04
- /how_high_can_you_get2.htm2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-11-06
What Hacker News says?
If only things were that simple. A demo video can show that there is an interaction that doesn't stutter, not that there is no interaction that stutters. For an historical analogue: you can show hours of paying PacMan without finding its kill screen ( http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm )
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “Massively Interleaved Sprite Crunch – C64 Demo Effect (2016)”Submitted Controlling the Barrels in Donkey Kong as a story · 66 points
HN discussionThis page shows how to fix the Pac-Man kill screen: http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “Playing Tetris forever”Submitted A modulo arithmetic error in PacMan's ghost AI? as a story · 50 points
HN discussionThe linked Don Hodges article about Level 256 is particularly fun to read, complete with a few proposed patches & a way to make the startup checksum still pass: http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm A fun quote - it certainly seems better to have an ending, even if it is not intended: > "It is probably a good thing that Pac Man has this bug in its program. If it didn’t, expert players could conceivably be a…
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “The Pac-Man Dossier”Submitted The Journey to Find, Analyze, and Fix Pac Man’s Split Screen (2007) as a story · 37 points
HN discussionThe links to Don Hodges site are great if you want the explicit low-level details. For instance, he has a patch to fix the kill screen: http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm I made a much less serious patch -- a backwards-facing Pac-Man that places dots instead of eating them: http://members.shaw.ca/gp2000/bacman.html
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “The Pac-Man Dossier”Submitted Pac Man’s split screen bug analyzed and fixed (2011) as a story · 9 points
HN discussionPinky's AI has a bug: http://donhodges.com/pacman_pinky_explanation.htm
Comment linking /pacman_pinky_explanation.htm
on “Using Ms. Pac-Man to Train the Next Generation of Military Drones”Submitted How high can you get: Fixing the Donkey Kong kill screen as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThere's been a few interesting articles posted on HN about Pacman's internals and gameplay: http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm http://gameinternals.com/post/2072558330/understanding-pac-m... http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html... You can find the relevant HN discussion by searching HN algolia: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=pacman&sort=byPopularity&prefi...
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “The Perfect Pac-Man (2006)”Submitted A Prayer to the Global Corporate Gods as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMs. Pac-Man: http://cubeman.org/arcade-source/mspac.asm and another one: http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm
Comment linking /how_high_can_you_get2.htm
on “Classic Pac-Man Source Code (commented)”Submitted Galaga's level wraparound bug, analysed and fixed. as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's more than you ever wanted to know on the subject: http://donhodges.com/Controlling_the_barrels_in_Donkey_Kong.... http://www.jeffsromhack.com/products/donkeykong_tech.htm
Comment linking /Controlling_the_barrels_in_Donkey_Kong.htm
on “Donkey Kong cheating case rocked by photos of illicit joystick modification”Submitted Donkey Kong Lays an Easter Egg (2009) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is an interesting set of articles, given the renewed interest in 8-bit arcade games recently (cough cough PAC MAN). Ignore the non-arcade stuff: http://www.donhodges.com/archive.htm This all looks like child's play now, but 30 years ago this was cutting edge engineering. These arcade board sets generated pretty great games for the era without framebuffers (RAM was hellishly expensive), high-speed CPUs, or a lot…
Comment linking /archive.htm
on “Is it possible to jump over the flag pole in Super Mario Bros? Yes”Submitted PAC MAN'S SPLIT SCREEN LEVEL ANALYZED AND FIXED as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The High Price of Cell Phones (2007) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Journey to Find and Analyze Pac Man’s Misterious Split Screen Final Level as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Retrogame hackers patch bug in 1980 arcade classic 'Phoenix' as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Journey to Find, Analyze, and Fix Pac Man’s Split Screen as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
